


Perfection

by bzarcher



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aging, Background Lemon Tea, Canon-Typical Violence, Commissioned fic, F/F, Implied BunnyRibbit - Freeform, Internal Monologue, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Obsessive Behavior, Post-Talon Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix, Significant injuries, Slow-ish burn, That doesn't necessarily mean she's NICE, The Cost of Perfection, Widowmaker POV, coming to terms, failure - Freeform, frenemies to lovers?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 11:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher
Summary: Widowmaker was designed to be the best sniper in the world, and she worked tirelessly to keep herself there. But how can she deal with a living reminder that she has failed before - and that eventually someone better will come along?





	Perfection

Widowmaker woke at 5am, a habit formed by years of having her life shaped by Talon’s trainers and doctors.

She was no longer part of Talon, but she was still a weapon, and weapons must be maintained properly.

Forty minutes of strength and flexibility exercises.

Two hours in the shooting range. Firing from a standing position, prone, hanging from her grapple, and on the move. Headshots, every time. The rare miss would be punished by adding another hour to her practice.

She was designed to be perfect - no matter the cost. Mistakes were unacceptable. Flaws would be exposed, examined, and mercilessly addressed until none remained.

Widowmaker was the greatest sniper in the world, and even though no one really challenged that status, she worked tirelessly to ensure that her grasp on the title was never in question.

Her augmented vision and reflexes were sharper than any normal human could hope to have. Her hands so steady, thanks to her modified circulatory and respiratory systems, that even a machine could not hope to maintain such perfect aim.

She was the best, and each day she honed her edge mercilessly.

Widowmaker was _perfect_ , and she would accept nothing less from herself.

* * *

When she finished practice, showered, and dressed, she ate.

Most of Overwatch was still wary around her. She’d been working alongside them for six months, now, but despite Ziegler’s assurances most of them expected her defection was nothing more than a ploy. That the ragged shade of Talon would reach out and touch her mind, and they would find themselves being murdered in their sleep.

That was fine.

She was a killer. She was a weapon. She was _Widowmaker._ She did not want or need their friendship or false cheer.

If they were afraid of her, wary of what she represented, always aware of the flawless killing machine in their midst... _good_. It was nothing less than her due.

She went through the kitchen to gather her standard breakfast: Egg whites, steamed spinach, a single piece of toasted bread with no butter or jam. Plain, perhaps, but it provided all of the necessary proteins, carbs, and vitamins she required, and did not cause undue weight gain.

She would have preferred to just eat the ration bars Talon had once provided or simply take direct glucose and vitamin injections, but the doctor had been horrified and gone on a rant about “proper nutrition and normalizing your eating habits” that had lasted for nearly an hour when she’d requested them.

Ziegler didn’t seem to understand that her diet and caloric intake had been carefully calculated to maintain her body in an ideal state. She’d gone on and on about ‘Amélie, you are a free woman now, you have the _right_ to eat whatever you choose!’ and not really listened to her reasoning.

If she had the right to eat garbage, then she also had the right to eat exactly what suited her needs. Why was this so difficult for the doctor to grasp?

( _The doctor insisted on calling her Amélie. As if she was just another colleague. As if she was her friend. She didn’t_ want _friends. Allies, perhaps, but she did not want anything more. Perfection by it’s definition was a solitary goal.)_

It had taken some experimentation to find a substitute, but this was...acceptable.

She’d made it through half of her eggs when the Korean girl had sat down at the other end of the table, eyeing her breakfast with undisguised loathing.

She did her best to never use their names, even in the privacy of her own mind. Names lead to attachments. Names lead to feelings, the useless static of emotion that would make her hesitate. Throw off her aim. Ruin her efforts. She did not _need_ such things.

_(She did not think of Gérard. She did not think of the way her hands shook. She did not think of how the voices of her Controllers had rung in her ears like church bells, relentlessly echoing until she finally drove one of his most beloved knives into his throat. Did not think of the wretched, messy, imperfect death. She would never allow herself to be so flawed again. She would never allow herself to be merely human.)_

“Don’t you ever get _bored?”_ The child gestured to the plate with her chopsticks as if it had personally offended her. “It’s always the same thing, always the same amounts, I think you even fold your eggs into the same _shape._ It’s _creepy_.”

She examined the child’s bowl of eggs, rice, cabbage, and fish out of the corner of her eye. The pungent smell of the pickled vegetables rankled her nose, but she wasn’t about to let the girl get the satisfaction of seeing her reaction. “I am eating a reasonable breakfast. It meets my needs, unlike...whatever you call _that._ ” She made a show of collecting a bit of greens and eggs on her fork, chewing and swallowing before she continued. “Between your atrocious breakfast and your bags of snacks, it’s no wonder that bodysuit of yours is straining at the seams.”

“ _What?!”_ The child’s face turned nearly as crimson as the disgusting ketchup she’d drizzled atop her rice. “Did you just call me _fat?”_

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that machine of yours doesn’t notice a few extra pounds, mm? Who knows? Perhaps a few of your little ‘fans’ are into such things.” She picked up her toast and took a dainty bite of the dry bread. “Do you receive a few extra...donations...if you gorge yourself on camera these days?”

The girl shot to her feet, chopsticks clapping together as her hands balled into fists. “OK, you blueberry _bitch,_ that’s _-_ ”

“ _Whoa whoa whoa whoa!”_ The DJ had apparently been listening and slithered in on those skates of his, putting a protective hand on the shoulder of the girl’s hoodie. “Easy, girl.”

The MEKA pilot glared at her with tears in her eyes before she turned back to look at the DJ. “You _heard_ her!”

“Yeah,” the Brazilian drawled slowly as he picked up her bowl, “look, she eats whatever, you eat whatever - she’s not _worth it_.” He tilted his head over at another table, never taking his eyes off of her, daring Widowmaker to say anything more. “C’mon and sit with me and Speedy. Lena wanted to ask you about a couple things, anyway.”

“Ah, yes,” she cooed sweetly at them, “the  _children’s table._ ”

The DJ turned his back with deliberate coldness. “Hey, at least we have somewhere to go.”

The gamer seemed just at the edge of letting her temper slip again, and she hoped the girl tried something. It would be a useful reminder to the rest to _leave her alone_ if she put the child in her place, but she finally broke their staring contest and stomped away, almost flinging herself into a seat at the other table that would face away from her.

Widowmaker allowed herself the luxury of a tiny little smile as she finished her breakfast.

When she stood to return and clean her dishes, she felt a prickle at the back of her neck. Looking over, she saw where the older Amari ( _Ana)_ was giving her an indulgent, almost _amused_ look, as if to ask _'Was that really  necessary?' _

She rolled her eyes and huffed slightly as she stalked back to the kitchen.

( _Every time she looked at the older woman’s eyepatch, she wondered what lay beneath. Was there scarring? Had the skin eventually healed over the ruined socket? How did the lines of her face change when she lifted away the elastic band?_  
_  
_ _Ana claimed it was a reminder. Every time she touched it in her presence, she had that cryptic little smirk. She could not possibly enjoy being reminded, could she? Of having what she’d lost constantly hanging over her? Of how she’d failed? Of the way Widowmaker had taken everything from her? The day she’d eclipsed the star of the legendary Horus, and proven that she deserved her position at the top of the ranks._

_If their positions had been reversed, she’d rather have died. Better to be mourned as a legend than remembered for slowly withering away until someone came along to prove she no longer had a right to that title.)_

* * *

If there was a mission, her time after breakfast was dedicated to preparation and target briefings.

Today, she made use of the downtime to give her equipment a full teardown and cleaning, inspecting every part to ensure there were no signs of excessive wear or misalignment.

She’d been carefully examining the mechanism for her grapple when she’d heard someone else coming into the small workroom that sat off of the firing range.

“Don’t mind me,” Ana said breezily as she settled down at one of the other benches facing across from her, “I’ve just got a few things to do and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

She raised her head just enough to offer a glare. “It seems to me that is a promise you have failed to keep before.”

Ana just chuckled and pulled her dart pistol from her belt, stripping it down for cleaning.

She put the grapple down and watched for a moment.

( _She tells herself it is to look for weaknesses in this woman, her triumph and her failure combined.)_

She noticed the way Ana fumbles with a cotton patch after adding a few drops of solvent, how it takes her a second try before she can thread the patch onto the cleaning rod, and tells herself she’s enjoying her old adversary’s moment of frustration.

_(She remembers how her own hands used to shake.)_

She had planned to remove and clean the barrel of Widow’s Kiss later, once she’d finished tending and testing her gauntlet and the mine launcher, but she decided to replace the access cover on the grapple ( _it hadn’t given her any trouble since she’d serviced it the day before yesterday, anyway_ ) and began removing the cleaning kit she stored in the rifle’s buttstock, screwing her own cleaning rod together and sliding the brush through the bore with perhaps a bit more force than strictly necessary.

Ana looked up from her work, raising her eyebrow in response. “Well, it’s nice to see that you _can_ alter your routine.”

Her fingers tighten slightly on the rod as she draws it back out again. “I can do _whatever is necessary_. You of all people should remember _that._ ”

“Of course,” Ana observed dryly as she began to reassemble her gun, “how could I forget?”

She would not let this... _ragged phantom_ get the best of her. This _has been_. She _knew_ she was the better sniper. The proof was there every time Ana looked in the mirror. She did not need to give Amari the _satisfaction_ of having annoyed her.

She did her best to maintain a chilly silence as she worked, trying to lose herself in the tasks of cleaning and maintenance, examining the cleaning patch as she ensured the barrel was free of dirt and fouling, ensuring the rifle was just as perfectly balanced...and meanwhile Ana continued that _damned humming._

When she had Widow’s Kiss reassembled and satisfied herself with the smooth transition from semi-automatic fire to sniping configuration, she collected her equipment in short, sharp motions, shoving her hand back into the gauntlet and slinging the rifle over her shoulder.

“It’s always nice to sit with you, dear. You’re so _quiet._ ”

She _might_ have growled underneath her breath as she left the workshop, but she’d never admit to it.

_(Why did she feel like she wanted to laugh instead?)_

* * *

The rest of Overwatch stayed blessedly out of her way for the remainder of the day, and Widowmaker was able to enjoy her breakfast the next day in peace, though she would swear the Korean girl ate an even larger pile of rice at the table across from her just to make a point.

She hadn’t expected a change from the usual routine, but as she had been washing her breakfast dishes, the three note tone which the gorilla’s pet AI used to signal announcements played over the speakers.

_“Attention: All agents to the briefing room, immediately. I repeat: All agents to the briefing room.”_

She left her dishes in the sink and made a sharp about face, heading for the briefing room that had been built out alongside the “scientist’s” lab.

She found a seat at the back and began reading through the briefing packet that had been placed there.

It seemed like they would be headed to an abandoned Mexican army compound not far from Dorado. Los Muertos had taken control of the facility while bringing in a large shipment of anti-Omnic weapons and other contraband. Intelligence from an ‘anonymous source’ had apparently informed Overwatch that the weapons, including a large EMP device similar to the one Talon had attempted to use against the Underground in London, would arrive in a few hours.

The plan was straightforward enough - wait for the arms merchants who had brokered the deal to arrive, let them bring in their ‘product’, and then sweep in and take out both sides.

Somehow she was not surprised when the annoyance arrived last, and rather than even attempt to read the packet, she put her hand up with childish enthusiasm, like a schoolgirl showing off to her teacher. “So, what’s all the fuss, big guy!”

“Perhaps if you had _opened_ the briefing material you would not have to ask, mm?” Widowmaker kept her voice low, but she noticed the younger Amari actually nod in agreement from where she sat in front of her, which was...surprisingly satisfying.

The gorilla cleared his throat with a gravelly rumble. “We’ve learned that Los Muertos is getting some serious weaponry, and there’s an opportunity to strike at their operation _and_ potentially unravel the network they’ve been using to purchase and smuggle their hardware. It’s an opportunity we can’t pass up.”

The cowboy put his feet up on the table. “Now, this ‘anonymous source’ of yours...why do I have a feeling she’s Mexican and awful good with a laptop?” He turned to look back at where she sat, giving her a skeptical look. “Didn’t think your girlfriend was too happy after you stepped out, Widow.”

She scoffed, looking away. “Sombra _always_ has her own reasons for her actions...and she was _never_ my girlfriend.”

( _Not that the hacker didn’t try. But Sombra’s heart only had room enough for Sombra, and they both knew it._ )

“Still wonderin’ exactly what Sombra gets out of it.” The cowboy hooked his thumbs in his belt buckle, as if he wasn’t stereotypical _enough_. “Didn’t she _run_ with the Muertos? That ain’t a bond you break easy.”

She shrugged. The next time she could anticipate Sombra’s ever shifting loyalties and plots would be the first.

“For now,” the gorilla interrupted, “we’ll assume that Sombra may have a power play in the works, but this is still a chance to put a major wrench in their operations, and to ensure those weapons never reach the streets. We’ll tread carefully, but we’re still going.”

No one else offered any objections.

Getting into combat was a relief, really.

Even her most annoying ‘colleagues’ tightened up and did their jobs when they left the Orcas, the annoying chatter and irrelevant conversations fading away, replaced by callsigns, quick status reports, and calls to identify targets.

Widowmaker had settled into an outcropping, and to her annoyance Amari had chosen the bluff just below rather than covering another sightline as the bulk of the Overwatch forces advanced behind the MEKA, the Gorilla, and the Russian.

She caught flashes of blue as the annoyance zipped between pockets of resistance, and saw the secondary explosions as the younger Amari’s rockets set off some of the more volatile ordnance, the golden flash of wings trailing behind her like a ribbon off of a kite.

The Muertos had scattered like roaches, disorganized and attempting to fight off a small army with no organization or purpose.

The arms merchants were a bit smarter - they’d bunkered down in some of the old base’s more reinforced buildings, and were putting up more resistance, trying to set up ambushes while they used the Muertos as cannon fodder.

Unfortunately, they’d put themselves directly into the scopes of two snipers.

Well. One sniper and one old woman who took one shot to every _three_ she took.

( _A bolt action rifle. Even if she’s firing those biotic rounds, how positively_ quaint. _)_

She’d just finished clearing a group off of the left flank when Ana spoke up from below her. “You have this angle covered. I ought to move ahead to a new one to cover them as they breach the inner ring.”

She rolled her eyes as she dropped Widow’s Kiss onto her back. “I wouldn’t want you to _break a hip_. You’d take ages to reach anywhere worthwhile. Stay here - I will move ahead and cover them properly.”

Ana sounded delighted. “How very kind of you, _mutshakirah!_ I appreciate how thoughtful you’ve become, Amélie.”

( _Using that NAME. Why do_ you _of all people insist on using that name? Why do you keep acting as if I’m still here?_

_Don’t you understand that I’m...that Amélie is gone?)_

Perhaps her irritation at Ana happily turning her insult into some kind of magnanimous gesture distracted her.

Perhaps something else had her mind occupied.

No matter what the cause, she didn’t need a terribly great amount of focus to spot her next perch. A barracks rooftop with excellent sightlines over the center of the base, where the remnants of both opposing forces were likely to fall back for their last stand.

Unfortunately, it seemed someone (probably one of the smugglers - the Muertos weren’t nearly so clever) had agreed.

She didn’t spot the antipersonnel mines that had been set up as a boobytrap until just before they detonated.

She didn’t even have time to scream before the world was turned into a riot of black and red, her nose filled with the smell of burning meat as she blacked out.

She hadn’t really expected to wake from her drastic blunder. Widowmaker briefly wondered if she might have somehow ended up in the afterlife, but she strongly doubted being dead would _hurt_ so much.

She heard voices in her earpiece, but they all blurred into a wordless cacophony in her bleary state, just another layer of confusion on top of the pain and vague feelings of panic she felt.

She slowly opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. Far too much bright red against blue skin and the purple material of her suit. Blackened, ragged edges of wounds and burns.

_(What a stupid, foolish, imperfect way to die.)_

A shadow fell over her as she heard the sound of something bursting as it hit the ground...and suddenly the pain began to fade.

Her eyes shot wide as the biotic grenade’s contents washed over her, the burns receding, several of the more lurid wounds beginning to close, deep purples and reds fading to ugly green and yellow bruises.

She started to move, and a gentle hand came down on her shoulder.

“Shh. Stay still. There’s still shrapnel in there and you’ve lost a lot of blood - I don’t know if your heart will be able to keep up if you try to move around.”

( _Of course it would be her. WHY did it have to be her?)_

She looked up and saw Ana leaning over her, but the expression on her face was not one of amusement or triumph. If anything...she looked concerned. Perhaps even afraid. Instead of rubbing her stupidity and failure in her face, Ana squeezed her shoulder again, then shifted over and put her rifle to her shoulder, firing off a few shots in a slow, steady pace.

( _Faster than I gave her credit for.)_

“We’ve almost got this wrapped up,” Ana observed a few minutes later. “I’m going to have Winston help us get you back. I don’t want any of those wounds opening back up, and we’ll need to dig the fragments out.” When she looked over, her voice had softened. “How is your pain, Amé?”

( _She’s called me that before.)_

Closing her eyes as she tried to force away the rush of confusing, painful memories, she let her head tilt to the side, feeling her ponytail drag against the dust and dirt thrown up by the blast. “Less, now. I can manage.” She opened her eyes, meeting Ana’s gaze. “Talon would consider me functional enough.”

Ana scoffed. “That’s not saying very much.”

She silently conceded the point.

Ana’s hand brushed the grip of her dart pistol. “I could put you under, if you like. We can keep you asleep until we’ve had a chance to take care of you properly.”

“No,” she answered after a long moment, “I would rather be awake, I think.” Ana meant well, but it ventured just a bit too close to Talon’s normal procedures for rendering her ‘offline’ when she needed maintenance or medical care.

Ana seemed as if she wanted to object, then nodded. “You will tell me if it gets to be too much?”

Her head felt like it was made of lead, but she managed to nod.

Ana gave her one last searching look, and then turned back to her scope.

“Ana?”

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

She could see just the hint of a sad smile on Ana’s lips. “I lost you once already, and I’ve had to say goodbye to far too many of the people I care for. I wasn’t about to do it again.”

She spent most of the flight back to Gibraltar turning those words over in her mind.

* * *

In the end, Angela had needed to operate - several pieces of shrapnel had been too deep to extract safely with her staff or other tools. She’d come within millimeters of having her lung punctured, her bowel perforated, or losing her liver.

The doctor made it clear that she had been exceedingly lucky, and were it not for Ana’s quick aid, there was a good chance that Widowmaker’s legendary career would have come to a permanent end.

She spent the better part of a week in the infirmary recovering from the operation before Angela was willing to clear her to return to light duties, and to her surprise several people visited and checked up on her while she was confined to bed.

Fareeha brought news of what intelligence they’d found from the smuggler’s files and a few interrogations that had been performed before they’d dropped their prisoners off to the proper authorities. It had been a pleasant change from what had been increasingly tedious boredom.

Lena had been...less annoying than she’d expected, and for some reason Widowmaker found that she didn’t have much acid to spit at the girl.

She’d brought a gift of a _Maigret_ novel (“Cap said you liked these”), and Widowmaker restrained the slight urge to say that she hadn’t realized that Lena knew how to read when the pilot had produced a book of her own from her jacket pocket.

_(I did like these. How did Ana remember? How long has it been since I read?)_

They’d sat for a while, the only sound flipping pages, before Lena closed her book and looked up to the clock on the wall. “Got to go give Em a call - she’ll be getting home from work in a minute. See you around later?”

She shrugged, gesturing to the IV line still sticking out of her forearm. “It’s not as if I can leave.”

Lena smiled. “Chin up! Angie said you were coming along fine in the meeting this morning. Bet you’ll be up and about in another day or two.”

She didn’t quite smile back, but she did wave as Lena saw herself out.

The most surprising visitor was Hana, who entered as skittishly as the rabbits she chose for her avatar.

“Hey.” She offered a hesitant wave as she stood halfway through the doorway. “Lú said you’d be out of bed pretty soon, so…” Hana shrugged. “I still think what you eat is _boring_ , but breakfast has been kinda weird without you sitting there creeping it up.”

She snorted, but there was no heat in it. “You will be relieved to hear that I will likely be on a restricted diet for the next few weeks, then, and probably will need to take on more protein while I rebuild muscle tone.”

Hana shrugged. “I mean...none of us were really glad you got fucked up like that. Grandma took it really hard, but the rest of us were...kinda worried.”

She couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “ _Kinda_ worried.”

“Look, you’re blue and you’re bitchy and you’re  _so weird_ ...but you’re still part of the team. I didn’t want you to _die_ , OK?”

She tried a smile. It seemed to fit. _“Merci, petite lapine.”_

Hana nodded with a jerk of her head, a little smile of her own breaking through her nervousness. “Right, I gotta go chase Genji around. See you.”

After the girl left, she considered that the only visitor she _hadn’t_ seen at least once was Ana.

She wasn’t sure why that bothered her.

_(Yes I am.)_

When she was finally released with instructions to ease back into her routine slowly, she decided the best way to start was with her equipment. What hadn’t been broken by the blast was in dire need of cleaning and servicing before she did anything else.

Thankful that she had blueprints for all of her equipment thanks to Sombra’s meddling, she used Athena to place orders from the workshop for the parts she would need to reconstruct her grapple and gauntlet, then took Widow’s Kiss to the workshop to see if she could put the rifle back to rights.

She’d just finished recalibrating her scope when Ana entered, settling into the bench across from her, just like the last time they’d both needed to use the tools there.

( _Just as she always has. I hadn’t thought about that before.)_

“How are you feeling?”

She shrugged. “Recovering. With what Talon made of my body...certain things are slower than others.”

( _Her hands do not shake, but her legs have been weak. She can feel aches in her core from the scars and the stitching where Angela had to move things around to extract the jagged metal. Even with the diet that was prescribed for her, she has been tired, and her energy lower than normal._

_She wonders if this is what Ana faces every day.)_

Ana made a sympathetic sort of hum. “Ironically, given what I’ve been doing with myself, I hate the hospitals. After I lost my eye, I never wanted to set foot in one again - and Angela doesn’t particularly care for me stopping in unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Her hand came to rest on the stock of her rifle. “She’s still a bit...touchy...about this.”

“Is that why you did not visit?” The words came out softer than she’d really intended.

Ana shrugged. “Among other reasons.”

The silence between them had changed. No longer prickly and probing, each of them fencing back and forth. But it was still...expectant, somehow. Like something would be needed to fill it, eventually.

“Thank you for suggesting Lena bring me the novel. It helped pass the time.”

“Ah, good. I was hoping she’d take the hint.” Ana looked up with a little smile. “I love the dear girl, but she’s not always good at picking up on subtlety. Emily is a saint for putting up with her.”

“Mm. I suppose she must be.” She slipped back into the work, making a slight adjustment to the trigger pull to compensate for her current condition, before she spoke again. “Fareeha mentioned you had found a tea room you enjoyed.”

Ana looked up from where she’d been making a slight adjustment to her scope. “I did, yes. Not quite as good as my favorite one back in Cairo, but they have some lovely blends.”

She nodded, then sat back to give Ana her full attention. “Would you...care to visit it, later? Together.”

Ana froze for just a moment before looking up at her. “I...would enjoy that, I think. Are you free tomorrow?”

She smiled. “As you said - I _can_ alter my routine.”

Ana laughed, and this time she laughed along with her.

Going to tea eventually became a regular part of her week.

Tea eventually became an invitation to go out for dinner.

Their dinners lead to an offer to go dancing.

When they moved along a polished floor, strings and brass and winds carrying the room along, Ana let her lead. She’d opted for a simple black suit, her hair tucked into a bun, a crisp white dress shirt and a dark blue tie that complimented both her hair and Ana’s dress.

When Ana decided to lean on her a little more than strictly necessary, she smiled.

When she spun them into a twirl, Ana laughed.

When Ana called her Amélie, it finally felt right.

When their lips met, it felt perfectly natural, but still took them both by surprise.

And when Ana breathlessly asked if she would kiss her again...it was perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commissioned fic and a ton of fun to write. Thanks for asking me to take this on!


End file.
